This invention relates to a dual-chambered container for facilitating changing the engine oil of a motor vehicle. The dual-chambered container is particularly adapted for receiving used and worn out engine oil in one chamber while new or replacement engine oil for replenishing the motor vehicle's oil reservoir is contained in the other chamber.
In the present age of conservation and concern about natural resources, there is an increasing need and desire to recycle products. One of these products is oil which has gained much attention with recent past and predicted future shortages. It is well known that oil, like many other natural resources, is in fixed supply. Oil, however, is a necessary lubricant for automotive internal combustion engines. Manufacturers of the automotive vehicles recommend that the engine oil be changed at regular intervals, usually every several thousand miles. This process of removing the old engine oil and replacing it with fresh oil is usually accomplished in one of two ways. The vehicle owner may take the vehicle to a service station and pay someone to change the oil, or he may elect to change the oil himself as it is designed to be a relatively simple task. More and more people are opting for the latter approach in our increasingly do-it-yourself society.
There are drawbacks, however, to the motor vehicle owner changing his own oil. First of all, it can be a messy task and secondly, the problem arises of what to do with the used oil once it is removed from the vehicle. In urban areas, where the biggest concentration of automotive vehicles exists, the vast majority of used engine oil removed by do-it-yourselfers is either emptied into sewers where it fouls up sewage treatment plants or flows into lakes where it pollutes the environment, or it is placed in municipal garbage. After the garbage is deposited, the oil can drain out, eventually seep through the ground into the water table, and contaminate drinking water supplies.
Besides having a negative effect on the environment, this discarding of used oil translates into the loss of a considerable amount of reusable oil from the potential supply. Service stations often collect their own used oil to be re-refined by a third party into a usable product. Service stations will even offer to receive used oil from do-it-yourselfers for such recycling. However, such offers have largely proved to be inconvenient to the service station who must have adequate facilities for the receipt of such used oil as well as inconvenient for the do-it-yourselfer.
The biggest inconvenience to the do-it-yourselfer is the extra steps of finding a suitable container in which to transport the used oil to a collection facility, and how to transfer the used oil from the pan which collects the oil from the vehicle to the container for transport to the collection facility.
This problem of used motor oil disposal is not new. Various attempts to solve this problem have been made, all of which have proved unsuccessful. For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 4,296,838 to Cohen discloses a system of changing motor oil that encompasses two separate containers that require separate handles, a means for fastening the containers together when transporting, and a pair of hinge clips for pivoting the separate containers when collecting used oil. The configuration of the Cohen system containers results in unused space in the used oil container when it is filled and therefore requires that the containers be separated when draining the used oil from the vehicle into the used oil container. Without separating the containers, the Cohen system would simply be too tall for sliding under a vehicle unless the vehicle was raised up in the air.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,403,692 to Pollacco also discloses a motor oil changing kit. This kit, too, is unsatisfactory because it involves separate containers, one which fits inside the other, that must be removed from each other when used. Furthermore, when transporting used oil to a collection facility, each of the Pollacco containers must be either transported separately or the used oil must be repoured into the new oil container thus requiring an extra step.
It is, therefore, an object of this invention to overcome the inadequacies of the prior art by providing a dual-chambered oil changing container that is one-piece, compact, and easy to use thus encouraging the do-it-yourselfer to bring the used oil to a collection center instead of discarding it in a potentially polluting manner.
A further object of this invention is to provide a dual-chambered oil changing container design that eliminates the requirement of separating the containers and eliminates extra components required to hinge or fasten separate containers together.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a one-piece oil changing container design that eliminates the need to repour the used oil once it is drained from the vehicle.
A still further object of the present invention is to provide a dual-chambered oil changing container in which the configuration of the new oil chamber performs the function of funnelling the used oil into the used oil chamber.
It is a still further object of the present invention to provide a compact design for a one-piece dual-chambered oil changing container so that there is no wasted space between the top of the funnelling surface and the bottom of the funnelling surface as in prior art devices like Cohen.
Additional objects and features of the present invention will become apparent from the subsequent description and appended claims taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.